Review: The Accident On The A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet

TITLE: The Accident On The A35
AUTHOR: Graeme Macrae Burnet
PUBLISHER: Bee Books
GENRE: Mystery/Crime Fiction
BLURB: “There does not appear to be anything remarkable about the fatal car crash on the A35. But one question dogs Inspector Georges Gorski: where has the victim, an outwardly austere lawyer, been on the night of his death?
The troubled Gorski finds himself drawn into a mystery that takes him behind the respectable veneer of the sleepy French backwater of Saint-Louis.
Graeme Macrae Burnet returns with a literary mystery that will beguile fans of His Bloody Project and The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau. Darkly humorous, subtle and sophisticated, The Accident on the A35 burrows deep into the psyches of its characters and explores the forgotten corners of small-town life.”
BUY LINKS:   Amazon India Amazon US Amazon UK 

MY RATING: 4.25/5
MY REVIEW:
The Accident On The A35 is a mystery fiction that starts off with Detective Gorski being called to investigate an accident on the A35. What follows is the tale of his investigation into the death of the affluent lawyer and the Detective’s subsequent findings.

“The real measure of “truth” in any novel is not whether the characters, places and events portrayed exist beyond the pages of the book, but, rather, whether they seem authentic to us as readers.”
-Graeme Macrae Burnet

Ah this book! Honestly, when I started reading it I wasn’t expecting much from it. I thought it’d be like the numerous other mysteries that I’ve read before, but that definitely wasn’t the case. It started off like anything other with the accident, the investigation and so on and so forth, but once I started delving deeper into it I simply fell in LOVE with the author’s writing style and couldn’t put down the book. The writing was simply brilliant, usually the insanely descriptive writing style annoys me but it was completely opposite with this book, I started craving for more and more. It had me completely immersed, the detailed narrative and the melancholic yet mysterious aura which both combined had a compelling effect. I have no qualms that it turned out to be rather different from what its blurb would impress upon you, if anything I liked that it focused more on the human psyche rather than the intricacies of the accident.

There are a myriad of characters in this book, each so different from each other and each struggling with their own demons. The naive Lucette, the selfish and struggling teenager Raymond, the simple and demure Gorski, each of them brought their own uniqueness to the story. My favourite of the lot though was Raymond, he as a character invokes a kind of repulsiveness in the reader but also intrigues them. His brooding and complicated nature was the highlight for me.

Overall, I loved the book for the way it shows the varied emotions and feelings of each of the characters. The fact that the book might have been inspired from Raymond Brunet’s life adds a certain flair to the story and makes it that much more interesting. Would definitely be reading more of the author’s work and I recommend that you do too.

*Disclaimer: I was sent a free copy of this book by the publisher but as always the opinions stated are honest and unbiased.

See you soon! 😄
xo,Rishi